List of islands in the Pacific Ocean

List of islands in the Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Islands are a group of islands in the Pacific Ocean. They are further categorized into three major island groups: Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Depending on the context, the term Pacific Islands may refer to one of several different concepts: (1) those countries and islands with common Austronesian origins, (2) the islands once (or currently) colonized, or (3) the geographical region of Oceania.
This list of islands in the Pacific Ocean is organized by archipelago or political boundary. In order to keep this list of moderate size, the more complete lists for countries with large numbers of small or uninhabited islands have been hyperlinked.
Name ambiguity and groupings
The umbrella term Pacific Islands has taken on several meanings. Sometimes it is used to refer only to the islands defined as lying within Oceania. At other times, it is used to refer to the islands of the Pacific Ocean that were previously colonized by the British, French, Spaniards, Portuguese, Dutch, or Japanese, or by the United States. Examples include Borneo, the Pitcairn Islands and Taiwan (also known as Formosa).
A commonly applied biogeographic definition includes islands with oceanic geology that lie within Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and the eastern Pacific (also known as the southeastern Pacific). These are usually considered to be the "Tropical Pacific Islands". In the 1990s, ecologists Dieter Mueller-Dombois and Frederic Raymond Fosberg broke the Tropical Pacific Islands up into the following subdivisions:
Western Melanesia
The Bismarck Archipelago and other islands directly east of New Guinea
Bougainville and Buka Island
The Solomon Islands
Eastern Melanesia
The Santa Cruz Islands
Vanuatu
New Caledonia
Fiji
Subtropical islands in the Australia/New Zealand region
Lord Howe Island
Norfolk Island
Micronesia
The Bonin Islands and Volcano Islands
Marcus Island
The Northern Marianas
The Southern Marianas
The Caroline Islands
Nauru and Banaba
Wake Island
The Marshall Islands
The Gilbert Islands (Kiribati)
Central Polynesia
Johnston Atoll
The Phoenix Islands
The Line Islands
Howland Island, Baker Island, Jarvis Island, Malden Island and Starbuck Island
Tuvalu, Tokelau and the Northern Cook Islands (Pukapuka, Nassau, Rakahanga, Manihiki, Penrhyn, Suwarrow and Palmerston)
Western Polynesia
Tonga
Samoa
Wallis and Futuna
Niue
Eastern Polynesia
The rest of the Cook Islands
The Austral Islands
The Society Islands
The Tuamotu Archipelago and the Pitcairn Islands
Easter Island and Salas y Gómez
The Marquesas Islands
Northern Polynesia
The Hawaiian Islands
Oceanic islands of the Eastern Pacific
The Revillagigedo Islands
Cocos Island and Malpelo Island
Clipperton Island
The Galápagos Islands
The Desventuradas Islands
The Juan Fernández Islands
Geopolitics and Oceania grouping
The 2007 book Asia in the Pacific Islands: Replacing the West, by New Zealand Pacific scholar Ron Crocombe, considers the phrase Pacific Islands to politically encompass American Samoa, Australia, the Bonin Islands, the Cook Islands, Easter Island, East Timor, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, the Galápagos Islands, Guam, Hawaii, the Kermadec Islands, Kiribati, Lord Howe Island, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island, Niue, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, the Torres Strait Islands, Wallis and Futuna, Western New Guinea and the United States Minor Outlying Islands (Baker Island, Howland Island, Jarvis Island, Midway Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and Wake Island). Crocombe noted that Easter Island, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, the Galápagos Islands, the Kermadec Islands, the Pitcairn Islands and the Torres Strait Islands currently have no geopolitical connections to Asia, but that they could be of future strategic importance in the Asia-Pacific. Another definition given in the book for the term Pacific Islands is islands served by the Pacific Community, formerly known as the South Pacific Commission. It is a developmental organization whose members include Australia and the aforementioned islands which are not politically part of other countries. In his 1962 book War in the Pacific: Strategy and Command, American author Louis Morton places the insular landmasses of the Pacific under the label of the "Pacific World". He considers it to encompass areas that were involved in the Pacific Theater of World War II. These areas include the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, as well as Australia, the Aleutian Islands, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, the Ryukyu Islands and Taiwan.
Since the beginning of the 19th century, Australia and the islands of the Pacific have been grouped by geographers into a region called Oceania. It is often used as a quasi-continent, with the Pacific Ocean being the defining characteristic. In some countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, China, Chile, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Spain, Switzerland or Venezuela, Oceania is seen as a proper continent in the sense that it is "one of the parts of the world". In his 1879 book Australasia, British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace commented that, "Oceania is the word often used by continental geographers to describe the great world of islands we are now entering upon" and that "Australia forms its central and most important feature." 19th century definitions encompassed the region as beginning in the Malay Archipelago, and as ending near the Americas. In the 19th century, many geographers divided up Oceania into mostly racially-based subdivisions; Australasia, Malaysia (encompassing the Malay Archipelago), Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The 1995 book The Pacific Island States, by Australian author Stephen Henningham, claims that Oceania in its broadest sense "incorporates all the insular areas between the Americas and Asia." In its broadest possible usage, it could include Australia, the Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian islands, the Japanese and Malay Archipelagos, Taiwan, the Ryukyu and Kuril Islands, the Aleutian Islands and isolated islands off Latin America such as the Juan Fernández Islands. Islands with geological and historical ties to the Asian mainland (such as those in the Malay Archipelago) are rarely included in present definitions of Oceania, nor are non-tropical islands to the north of Hawaii. The 2004 book The Making of Anthropology: The Semiotics of Self and Other in the Western Tradition, by Jacob Pandian and Susan Parman, states that "some exclude from Oceania the nontropical islands such as Ryukyu, the Aleutian islands and Japan, and the islands such as Formosa, Indonesia and the Philippines that are closely linked with mainland Asia. Others include Indonesia and the Philippines with the heartland of Oceania."
Certain anthropological definitions restrict Oceania even further to only include islands which are culturally within Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Conversely, Encyclopedia Britannica believe that the term Pacific Islands is much more synonymous with Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia, and that Oceania, in its broadest sense, embraces all the areas of the Pacific which do not fall within Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. The World Factbook and the United Nations categorize Oceania/the Pacific area as one of the seven major continental divisions of the world, and the two organizations consider it to politically encompass American Samoa, Australia, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, French Polynesia, Fiji, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Norfolk Island, the Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis and Futuna and the United States Minor Outlying Islands.
Since the 1950s, many (particularly in English-speaking countries) have viewed Australia as a continent-sized landmass, although they are still sometimes viewed as a Pacific Island, or as both a continent and a Pacific Island. Australia is a founding member of the Pacific Islands Forum, which is now recognized as the main governing body for the Oceania region. It functions as a trade bloc and deals with defense issues, unlike with the Pacific Community, which includes most of the same members. By 2021, the Pacific Islands Forum included all sovereign Pacific Island nations, such as Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji and Tonga, in addition to dependencies of other nations, such as American Samoa, French Polynesia and Guam. Islands which have been fully integrated into other nations, including Easter Island (Chile) and Hawaii (United States), have also shown interest in joining. Tony deBrum, Foreign Minister for the Marshall Islands, stated in 2014, "Not only [is Australia] our big brother down south, Australia is a member of the Pacific Islands Forum and Australia is a Pacific island, a big island, but a Pacific island." Japan and certain nations of the Malay Archipelago (including East Timor, Indonesia and the Philippines) have representation in the Pacific Islands Forum, but none are full members. The nations of the Malay Archipelago have their own regional governing organization called ASEAN, which includes mainland Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam and Thailand. In July 2019, at the inaugural Indonesian Exposition held in Auckland, Indonesia launched its 'Pacific Elevation' program, which would encompass a new era of elevated engagement with the region, with the country also using the event to lay claim that Indonesia is culturally and ethnically linked to the Pacific islands. The event was attended by dignitaries from Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific island countries.
List of the largest Pacific islands
Islands of the Pacific Ocean proper, with an area larger than 10,000 km2.
By continent
Antarctica
List of Antarctic and subantarctic islands
Asia
List of islands of Asia
List of islands of China
Japanese Archipelago of 6,852 islands
List of islands of Japan
List of islands of Indonesia
List of islands of North Korea
List of islands of the Philippines
List of islands of Russia
List of islands of South Korea
List of islands of Vietnam
North America
Central American Pacific Islands
List of islands of North America
List of islands of Canada, section British Columbia
List of islands of Mexico
List of islands of the United States
Oceania
List of islands of Australia
List of islands of Britain
List of islands of the Pitcairn Islands
List of islands of Fiji
List of islands of France, section Pacific Ocean
List of islands of Hawaii
List of islands of Kiribati
List of islands of the Marshall Islands
List of islands of New Zealand
List of islands of Papua New Guinea
List of islands of the Solomon Islands
List of islands of Tonga
List of islands of Tuvalu
List of islands of the United States, section Insular areas
List of islands of Vanuatu
South America
List of islands of South America
List of islands of Chile
List of islands of Colombia
List of islands of Ecuador
List of islands of Peru
By country
American Samoa
American Samoa
Aunuu
Ofu-Olosega
Rose Atoll
Swains Island (Olosenga, Olohega) (Disputed)
Tau
Tutuila
Australia
List of islands of Australia, including:
Coral Sea Islands
Willis Island
Lord Howe Island
Norfolk Island
Torres Strait Islands
Canada
List of islands of British Columbia, many islands including:
Haida Gwaii, some 400 islands near Alaska
Graham Island, the main northern island
Moresby Island, the main southern island
Vancouver Island, Canada's largest Pacific island
Gulf Islands, numerous islands off the southeast coast of V.I. near the U.S. San Juan Islands
Chile
Chiloé Island
Desventuradas Islands
Easter Island/Rapa Nui
Isla Salas y Gómez
Juan Fernández Islands
China
List of islands of China
Colombia
Gorgona Island
Malpelo Island
Cook Islands
Aitutaki
Atiu
Pamati (Palmerston)
Mangaia
Manihiki (Humphrey)
Manuae (Hervey)
Mauke (Parry)
Mitiaro (Nukuroa)
Nassau
Pukapuka (Danger)
Rakahanga (Reirson)
Rarotonga
Suwarrow (Anchorage)
Takutea
Tongareva (Penrhyn)
Costa Rica
Cocos Island
Ecuador
Galapagos Islands
Puná Island
Fiji
Principal islands:
Viti Levu
Vanua Levu
Significant outliers:
Conway Reef
Kadavu Island
Taveuni
Rotuma Island
Archipelagos:
Kadavu Group
Lau Islands
Lomaiviti Islands
Mamanuca Islands
Moala Islands
Ringgold Isles
Rotuma Group
Vanua Levu Group
Viti Levu Group
Yasawa Islands
France
Clipperton Island
French Polynesia
French Polynesia (Autonomous Overseas Territory of France)
Austral Islands
Tubuai
Society Islands
Windward Islands
Moorea
Tahiti
Tetiaroa
Maiao
Mehetia
Leeward Islands
Bora Bora
Huahine
Maupiti
Raiatea & Tahaa
Tupai
Mopelia (Maupihaa)
Manuae (Scilly Atoll)
Motu One (Bellinghausen)
Marquesas
Fatu Hiva
Hiva Oa
Euba
Nuku Hiva
Tahuata
Ua Huka Pen
Ua Pou
Tuamotus
Rangiroa
Fakarava
Moruroa
Fangataufa
Gambier Islands
Mangareva
Helena Island
Guam
Guam
Hong Kong
List of islands of Hong Kong
Hong Kong Island
Lantau
Indonesia
Western New Guinea
Borneo
Japan
List of islands of Japan, including:
The five main islands:
Hokkaido - the northernmost and second largest main island.
Honshu - the largest and most populous island; home of the capital Tokyo.
Kyushu - the third largest main island and closest to the Asian continent.
Shikoku - the second smallest main island after Okinawa; between Honshu and Kyushu
Okinawa Island - the smallest and southernmost of the main islands
Other notable islands:
Marcus Island
Okinotori Islands
Kiribati
List of islands of Kiribati:
Caroline Island
Flint Island
Gilbert Islands
Line Islands (8 of 11)
Kiritimati/Christmas Island
Malden Island
Phoenix Islands
Starbuck Island
Tabuaeran/Fanning Island
Teraina/Washington Island
Vostok Island
Macau
List of islands of Macau
Malaysia
Sipadan
Marshall Islands
Marshall Islands
Bikini
Enewetak
Kwajalein
Rongelap
Majuro
Mexico
Cedros Island
Tiburón Island
Revillagigedo Islands
Rocas Alijos
Guadalupe Island
Micronesia
Islands of Federated States of Micronesia
Caroline Islands
Pohnpei
Yap
Ulithi
Chuuk
Puluwat
Kosrae
Nauru
Nauru, a country and single island
New Caledonia
New Caledonia (special collectivity of France)
Grande Terre (New Caledonia)
Chesterfield Islands
Ilots du Mouillage
Isle of Pines
Belep Islands
New Caledonia
Loyalty Islands
Bagao
Lifou Island
Maré Island
Ouvéa Island
Tiga Island
Matthew Island and Hunter Island, administered by France as part of New Caledonia but also claimed by Vanuatu
New Zealand
Islands of New Zealand, around 600 islands including:
Auckland Islands
Chatham Islands
Chatham Island
Pitt Island
d'Urville Island
Great Barrier Island
Kapiti Island
Kermadec Islands
Macauley Island
Raoul Island
North Island
South Island
Stewart Island/Rakiura
Waiheke Island
Niue
Niue, a country and single island
Northern Mariana Islands
Northern Mariana Islands
Saipan
Rota
Tinian
Maug
Pagan Island
Alamagan
Farallon de Pajaros
Palau
Palau has over 250 islands, including:
Angaur
Babeldaob
Caroline Islands
Kayangel
Ngerekebesang Island
Oreor
Peleliu
Southwest Islands
Panama
Pearl Islands
Papua New Guinea
List of islands of Papua New Guinea
New Guinea, eastern half
Bismarck Archipelago
Admiralty Islands
Manus Island
Karkar Island
New Britain
New Ireland
Saint Matthias Group
Solomon Islands archipelago (northern part)
Bougainville
Buka Island
Trobriand Islands
Kiriwina
Woodlark Island
D'Entrecasteaux Islands
Fergusson Island
Goodenough Island
Normanby Island (Papua New Guinea)
Louisiade Archipelago
Misima Island
Tagula Island or Sudest Island
Rossel Island
Samarai
Daru Island
Kiwai Island
Philippines
List of islands of the Philippines, over 7600 islands including:
Spratly Islands (disputed)
Scarborough Shoal (disputed)
Russia
List of islands of Russia
Kuril Islands
Sakhalin
Samoa
List of islands of Samoa:
Samoa (western part of the Samoa Islands)
Savai'i
Upolu
Apolima
Manono
Nuutele
Solomon Islands
Islands of the Solomon Islands
Bellona
Choiseul
Florida Island
Guadalcanal
Malaita
Maramasike
New Georgia Islands
Rennell
Russell Islands
San Cristobal
Santa Cruz Islands
Santa Isabel
Shortland Islands
Sikaiana (Stewart Islands)
Tulagi
Ulawa
Uki
Taiwan
List of islands of Taiwan, 166 islands including:
Taiwan, the main island with over 99% of the country's total area
Tokelau
List of islands of Tokelau
Tokelau (mostly autonomous), three coral atolls with about 25 islands combined, including:
Olohega (Swains Island), administered by the United States as part of American Samoa, but claimed by Tokelau due to geography, history and language
Tonga
List of islands in Tonga; in north to south order:
Niuafoou
Niuatoputapu (Keppel's Island)
Vavau
Kao
Tofua
Haapai
Tongatapu
Eua
Tuvalu
Islands of Tuvalu
Funafuti (atoll of at least 30 islands)
Nanumanga (or Nanumaga)
Nanumea (atoll of at least 6 islands)
Niulakita
Niutao
Nui (atoll of at least 21 islands)
Nukufetau (atoll of at least 33 islands)
Nukulaelae (atoll of at least 15 islands)
Vaitupu (atoll of at least 9 islands)
United Kingdom
Pitcairn Islands, four islands:
Pitcairn Island
Henderson Island
Oeno Island
Ducie Island
United States
Alaska, many islands including:
Aleutian Islands
Alexander Archipelago
Nunivak Island
St. Lawrence Island
List of islands of California
Channel Islands
Hawaiian Islands, many islands and islets including:
Hawaii
Kahoolawe
Kauai
Ka'ula
Lanai
Maui
Molokai
Niihau
Oahu
Northwestern Hawaiian Islands
Kure
Nihoa
Necker
French Frigate Shoals
Gardner Pinnacles
Maro Reef
Laysan
Lisianski
Pearl and Hermes Reef
List of islands of Oregon
Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge
United States Minor Outlying Islands, eight small island groups between Hawaii and the Philippines (e.g. Johnston Atoll, Midway Atoll, Wake Atoll)
List of islands of Washington state
Islands of Puget Sound
San Juan Islands
Vanuatu
List of islands of Vanuatu, some 83 islands including (north to south approximately):
Torres Islands
Banks Islands
Espiritu Santo
Malakula
Ambrym
Paama
Epi
Shepherd Islands
Efate, home of the national capital Port Vila
Lelepa
Erromango
Tanna
Disputed:
Matthew Island and Hunter Island, administered by France as part of New Caledonia but also claimed by Vanuatu
Wallis and Futuna
Wallis and Futuna
Alofi
Futuna
Wallis (Uvea)
Notes
Pacific
Pacific Ocean-related lists